HEAVEN LAKE ( 28 ) ~

As I Was Told

For years I have worked

As a gardener and for years

I have stood by flower and

Vegetable beds with an owner

Who would like this planted

And this pulled out and only

Occasionally have I not done

As I was told like this morning

The wild violets off to them-

Selves and still beaded with

Last night’s rain come crowded

Up past witch grass which makes

Me think I’ll protect them

Until the end

All You Need To Know

All you need to know about

America now is —

all my old tools are with me

working daily

hammers, trowels, levels

saws, plumb-bobs, rakes

while all my new tools

are soon broken

Instructor

Teenage girls in

Shorts and blouses

Holding notebooks

Visiting us in spring

Rain and later standing

In my work room of

Books paintings gifts

And the students pivot

In place soaking up

Everything yet are

Dumbfounded and

Cannot stop looking at

One wood sculpture

Ample naked figure

Propped against

One window —

A nut-

Cracker —

I thought not to show

How her legs parted

My Kind Of Place

with the wet rag

clump at the cash

register, anyone can

clean the tables

____________________

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018

HEAVEN LAKE ( 27 ) ~

Mister

Across the brawn of the river

St. Lawrence from Old Montreal

In a park tree topped by sunshine

We walked and only stopped

Once because we just had to

Listen to a man off by himself

With no hat down or instrument

Case open who sat straight up

On a bench with his both feet

Dancing ‘cause you see beside

This water and flowing up into 

The trees and looking back to

The city we all could hear

His concertina

Dirty Old Town

We used to have a rat that lived in the house

A big old rat who lived under the bathroom floor boards

Being an old house with so many holes the rat had

his own way of coming up through the floor and

onto the bathtub and stealing the soap, he loved the soap

We’d go in to take a bath and see the rat had eaten a bit more of the     soap

There wasn't much you could do, you had a rat in the house

Until I shot it, because I had to, because we had a baby and

you can't have a rat and a baby, so the rat had to go

I used to have a friend who always brought up how I

shot the rat right in front of him right in broad

daylight, almost nicked the toilet

I remember the rat, and the rifle, the toilet, but not the friend

Sweetheart had a fat pink warm and cuddly chair

in the kitchen that she would curl up in on the coldest

mornings and we still get a little sick to think that

the rat had moved into the chair after it had moved

out from under the bathroom floor boards and still

ate the soap — that means he walked across the kitchen

After Awhile

you’ll notice —

the toughest wood to split

burns the warmest

You Can

toss an apple

core to the

river

but never get

to float that

free

Answer

We wanted to know

Where all the snow was

All winter no snowshoeing

But long hikes and ice-skating

Near spring we drove out

Of the valley up to

The mountains and there a

Lonely road of deep snow was

____________________

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018

HEAVEN LAKE ( 26 ) ~

Respect Your Elders

At a forested

statue of the

poet Robert

Frost some

one had

stuck a

half burned

down cigarette

into one

of his

hands

as one

more practical

joke of the

artist-at-

work

until I

saw what

was too

lucky

to find

on the

path

a pencil

which I

replaced for

the cigarette

as if the

poet had

asked

me to

To See

To see all the

Apple blossoms

On the tree and

If you miss that

Look to the pond

Where most from

Last night’s wind

Are now floating

The Little Things

Out in the dark woods

when the power goes out

with heavy snow

there is nothing quite

like a small chocolate

drop melting in the

dark of your mouth

butterfly

going no

where in

particular

Sidewalk Storm

A complete stranger—

we begin to

talk because

like me he

has a quickness

of thickening

snowflakes

in his 

hair

_____________________

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018

HEAVEN LAKE ( 25 ) ~

An Answer To 

My Problems

=

CUT

MORE 

WOOD

Turn Around

You can live in fear

that’s all there seems to be

newspaper to television screen

even people’s faces on the street

stop your car by the side of the road

get out and walk into the field

sit there, be there, your back to the road

everyone will think you are crazy

you are crazy

now that that is settled

sit there until the field takes you

then the trees

False Idols

we brought apples on the trip

and never ate the apples on the trip

nothing like an apple

Buddy

Tonight while sitting on the

can

the little kitten we saved from

starving and freezing to death

is a month now with us

and 12 weeks old

and as I sat there he crawled

without hesitation into my

pulled down pants

a little pocket of

kitten, and no one but no one

would think of doing this

but him

The Sort Of World I Like

I’m on the roof today cleaning the chimney

Without a sound a bicyclist floats by on the

Dirt road along the river and spots me and

Shouts, “Your house looks great!”

I’ve never seen her before

I look twice to make sure I haven’t

Nope

Don’t know her

But she’s happy

_____________________

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018